Musings of a life without a car in California, well at least San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley. Full of tips, observations and impact of automobiles on our lives.
Check out the links to the right for resources and tips for reducing car usage. Get Active! Start Moving on your own energy! You can contact me at carfreeincalifornia@mac.com

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

too much stuff or too much change?

An interesting pair of complementary article that make sense together. The first is an blog post in the New York Times Bucks Blogs that argues that we have too much stuff, but more importantly asks questions to help us assess why we have the stuff we have and how to reduce it once those questions have been answered. I know that I am a sucker for a good deal and will pick up things because they are a "good value." But once I have them, I will be hesitant to throw away because I know it has it's use just not right now.
Contrast this with an article in Techcrunch talking about the eWaste problem that will be created if Apple's rumored change in docking connector happens and it's mind blowing. So many products have been created for this docking connector that will no longer be compatible with the rumored new iPhone. It's true, I have a lot of cradles and cables that use the old dock. Think of the thousands of hotel rooms that have clocks that have the dock connector? Do you throw them out? The business case for introducing a new connector is huge, but so is the environmental cost. The European Union saw the endless incompatible charging adapters of the different mobile phone manufacturers that they mandated phones be chargeable with microUSB adapters. Apple had to comply as well.
Change for change sake, or profit margin will lead to more stuff in our lives,and don't we have too much already?